It is October 1940 and Gervase Fen, Oxford don and part-time sleuth--is preparing for the new term. Trouble is in store when Robert Warner, up and coming playwright, chooses Oxford for the premiere of his latest play, Metromania. Together with his cast he comes to Oxford to rehearse a week before the opening, but Warner's motley troupe includes the beautiful but dangerous Yseut Haskell. When she is found shot dead in the college room of a young man...

Fifteen years ago Vida Avery arrived alone and pregnant at elite Fayer Academy. By living on campus, on an island off the New England coast, Vida has cocooned herself and her son, Peter, from the outside world and from an inside secret. For years she has lived largely through the books she teaches, but when she accepts the impulsive marriage proposal of ardent widower Tom Belou, the prescribed life Vida has constructed is swiftly dismantled. As Vida...

The tumultuous events in this tale of a brilliant, eccentric and fatefully divided family begin with the staging of a play about Elizabeth I and come to a shattering climax sure to keep Byatt fans spellbound.